When Xeper the Ever-Learning heard it the first time, he was at school. That a man declared to the world that “God is Dead”. Xeper was amazed at the people’s reactions. More than the concept, Xeper was indeed amazed at the people’s reactions. He did not really know whether God existed, and he knew how his fellow people would take it. Outraged they were. Both those who liked the idea of the existence of God and those who couldn’t accept it saw him as a new prophet of atheism.

“Weird, don’t you think?” Xeper asked his companion Heret, the Fallen Angel. And he agreed when the Angel answered “Indeed, no one would bother declare me dead if they didn’t fully believe I existed.”

Science, people seem to have forgotten, is a blind tool. It has no Vision. One cannot say that Scientifically, we should do this or that. Science serves two important functions; finding Truth, and empowering Purpose. What Science cannot provide is Purpose. Soul provides Purpose, and therefore Direction. Soul, not Science and Technique, provides Direction.

I dont mind when non-religious spiritualists refer to The Great Soul as Nature, nor do I mind when religious people refer to The Great Soul as God, because the two words imply Soul, thus Direction and Purpose. What I do mind is scientific people assuming Science is the provider of Direction. And by Science they mean the Soul-less part of Nature, devoid of Purpose as it is devoid of Soul. They speak of Scientifically observable forces they assume drive the whole thing. They speak of the Machine Aspect of Nature.

This quick intro summarizes years of unnoticed dichotomy, then months of confusion, then Finding, then months of testing that I would like to share with you today. In fact, this Finding is one of the few main messages I think will form my legacy to this world. And is therefore one of the more than few reasons why I started blogging. It took time to come up with a name for the idea, then more time to test it by both observation and discussion, and I found no better explanation of what we perceive and may believe than this: The Divine Solitaire Principle, which goes as follows:

First, I would like to make sure you know the game commonly known as Solitaire (or Klondike). If you’re not sure, please check this description of Solitaire/Klondike, arguably the most popular solitaire or patience game today.

The game, as other patience games, deals with a number of items that are homogenous and similar enough to be able to refer to them collectively (e.g. a pack of cards), and yet different enough to be able to differentiate them. Moreover, their number is large enough to have several instances of each characteristic (several Aces, several 9s, several Kings, several diamonds, several spades, etc). And finally, this set is not organized in any meaningful way, and the cards’ differences do not really have any meaning except difference and similarity (even if you want to tell me but 7 is greater than 5, I would tell you there’s nothing that can stop you from playing a game where 5 is higher than 7, or where you can choose to play without 7s in the first place).

The above description reminds me of humans. Some are Egyptian, some American, some Asian, some European, etc. In some situations, being European may make you relate with other Europeans rather than with Asians; yet in other instances a card/human that is female may relate in some situations more to other females than to others from their own suite (e.g. Asian).

Now back to Solitaire. The game always starts by your getting the cards in a random order, part of the deck of cards being together in and requires you, while sticking to specific rules, to take the yet to be known randomly grouped cards in the stock and re-organize them on the floor/tableau where the cards have to relate to each other in certain rules.

I guess you already see where I am heading.. the cards randomly stacked in the stock needed to relate to a card on the tableau in a certain way in order to be able to appear on the tableau and be supported by the previous card: A Red Jack can only be “born” to a Black Queen.

Now imagine with me a scientist watched a game of Klondike/Solitaire; and only saw the tableau and didn’t know where the cards came from or the rules of the game and that all cards were already there in the game from the start, what would s/he deduce? Scientific observation not knowing the cards in the stock/heaven will deduce that cards/humans are born to a specific formula of their parent’s rank; Kings produce only Queens, which produce only Jacks, who give birth only to 10s, etc. And scientific observation will discover the amazing science of colorlogy/genetics which states that a card invariably inherits its grandfather’s colors. When a card cannot have new cards below it, observation will say it is a barren card, though often it will not know why it is barren. Observation will therefore conclude, especially as some stacks on the tableau get longer than others, that cards “produce” the following cards, not that they are merely being arranged in a specific way for convenience and the higher purpose of the player and/or the rule maker.

I believe in genetics. But I do not believe we are being produced by genetics. That genetics are what shapes us. No. I believe genetics places us. Genetics is the way of God/Nature/Higher Soul to ensure we are born to parents who understand our limitations because they have them, who find our quirks funny because they had them, who would see our issues as challenges they want to help us defeat because they are the challenges they defeated, or are still trying to defeat.

Note to my regular readers: Please skip this post; it’s just a collection of technical guides to the game Elveron that I am posting for my buddies there. They need it online in one place and we had no other place.

Note to Elveron players: Please feel free to add whatever more notes and guides you want to add to the comments below. I still did not have the time to organize them.

-Laucien of Mirkwood posted at 2009-01-22 05:16:19 CET
Well, i have searched for you at the forum and this is what i came up with:
Not a perfect formula (as in, it’s just an estimate) but whatever :

Land Gain :

((2 x T) – S)/10

where T is Target’s land and S is Self’s land.

for T size 67% to 100% of S. For T size 100% to 115% of S, you simply gain 10% of T. For T over 115%, you simply gain 11.5% of your own land.

-Heavenking of Heaven posted at 2009-01-22 09:49:55 CET

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How exactly do you improve your NetWorth? I’ve been playing for a while, but I still haven’t gotten the hang of it.

-Laucien of Mirkwood posted at 2009-02-02 04:43:37 CET
This is how it’s works:
HIGHEST POWER x1+ LOWEST POWER *0,2
workers are 0,75 NW
except for trolls and amazon workers that are 1,15
1 from the op and 0,15 from the spy.
if units have spy power and mage power it is the biggest of them not combined.

for example human longbowman. 6,7*1+3*0,2=7,3 NW

if you train 100 of those you gain 7,3*100-100*0,75 (100 lower workers)=655 NW

-Heavenking of Heaven posted at 2009-02-02 14:26:19 CET
well, its quite simple when you explain it like that 0_o. Do buildings and land improve your NW in any way? (may be a silly question, but in a different game I play they do, so thought best to ask.)

-Manta of Impreza posted at 2009-02-03 21:52:00 CET
well, i never thought of it so searched it up @ the forum, but don’t know if this is true what it says:
NW barren land is 10 points and building on it will provide another 10 points..
Once again, i don’t know if it’s true and will look at it next time i will take my free land bonus;)
So will see..

-Heavenking of Heaven posted at 2009-02-03 22:08:47 CET
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Warning: long post ahead
Disclaimer: The following post is not directed towards any particular player, and is intended for learning purposes only.

Introduction

I’d say that Elveron has an active community of about a hundred players on the global forums, in addition to several hundred other active players that don’t post frequently on the forums. With a large pool of players, you’d expect to see some lesser-known names win over the years (i.e. Jester won last round). But despite the opportunity every round for the more populous middle-of-the-pack players to take the cake, the veteran favorites indeed take the vast majority of wins. And even though Jester isn’t as well-known, some would argue that he fits into the veterans’ category, having started playing Elveron before many other well-decorated experts. Clearly, the veteran experts are doing something that the rest of the players aren’t. But what, exactly?

You’ve often heard the cries in the globals of “(insert race here) is broken”, “(insert strategy here) is overpowered”, and such. As it is, round after round, the administration is balancing the game and yet the veterans seem to always be a step of the rest. If I had to generalize a style of play, a strategy, a timezone, or a race choice that has a strong correlation between veterans and winning, I wouldn’t be able to. That’s because, in the words of The Baron, “veterans don’t play the game, they play the players”. As their competition changes, veterans scope out the situation and adapt. So with that being said, don’t fuss about trying to tweak your near-perfect human build, because that’s not the key to winning.

Tips from the Experts’ Manual

A lot of time is often spent criticizing middle-tiered players on what they shouldn’t be doing, but it’s a rare topic to mention what experts are doing. I’d like to prepare the setting for this discussion by defining a couple of words. In the context of Elveron, I will define strategy as a pre-planned general course of action. For example, strategy includes building strats, in-protection build order, military composition, and improvement levels. I will also define tactics as, but not limited to, on-the-fly decisions and counter-measures that are situationally made. Examples of this include spec pushes, cover offense, insta-war declarations, and such. As a general guideline, both an effective combination of strategy and tactics are needed to win a round. I’m also going to call holding the torch as carrying top offense. Now onto some tips:

1. Working as a team
Let’s start with some basics that many players are capable of employing. While it is nice to cut down on dust and stealth usage by sharing info ops via realm book, there is more to this than target-sharing communication (in-realm only, of course). I can’t stress how important it is to keep your realmmates informed of your particular take on a developing situation or any major decisions you will make during a round. These include but are not limited to: timeframe for your next planned attacks along with projected military, pointing out immediate and potential threats, hittable ‘landfarms’ and projected landfarms, possible need for war bonus, and such. Since coordinated online activity is often limited for many players including those at the top, it is vital to have some sort of messaging program capable of sending messages offline. Some players have even resorted to exchanging phone numbers, but it doesn’t have to go that far.

2. Hostile and War
The ability to coordinate trivial matters plays a major factor when it comes to war declarations. Too many people see war simply as a +10% offense, +20% land gains bonus. Far from being just a land-gaining asset, war or the absence of war can be exploited in a variety of ways. If top offense has recently used war elsewhere, that is a +10% offense less that they can use against your realm for another 24-36 hrs. If your own realm carries a major offensive threat and uses war, you need to weigh whether you are actually giving your opponents a big break to clean up more acres than you can possibly gain. Not just a war, but also a false-alarm hostile declaration can scare potential landfarms into defending themselves against your opponents even if you can’t capitalize yourself. And most importantly, the ability to war along with a major military threat will keep opposing threats in check, even if you don’t necessarily plan to act.

-Heavenking of Heaven posted at 2009-01-22 10:09:05 CET
3. Top offense
It has become commonplace for players to settle either into a defensive posture or suicide mode when dealing with an opposing realm’s top offense. The former will render a player ineffective, and the latter may counteract the offensive threat in the short-run (and probably turns yourself into free acres for other competition) but doesn’t deal with the underlying problem. Top offense, while many times synonymous with top players, is a torch that gets passed around in the early goings of a round and is crucial to hold to establish any sort of initiative in the game. Let’s put it this way: if you’re top offense, people should be defending you, not the other way around. And once top offense makes a couple of grabs and spends his economy on buildings and defense, that torch is passed to the next top offense. Even two weeks into the game, two or three realms may still be passing the torch around as their major threats shred their offense.

While there is no one key to holding top offense, there is generally some sacrifice of long-term efficiency for short-term gains. Even if one or two players in a realm hold top offense temporarily, it may be effective enough to cut down on the amount of defense the rest of the realm is required to hold. One common mistake is that one player in a realm should be a designated torch-holder while everyone else plans out a longterms strategy. While this may work out, it is oftentimes necessary for two or more realmmates to coordinate their efforts for torch-holding.

4. Threat offense
Since top offense is cyclical due to casualties, timing is a crucial aspect of the game. This is more in line with playing the players, not the game. Let’s give an example. Say there’s a player who holds top offense and makes a slowed war grab followed by two more effective attacks. In addition to the startup cost of building the buildings, it will likely take three days for that player’s higher economy to replace the casualties and jump back to a level where he can hold top offense and sufficiently defend himself. In that time, there is a new but lesser top offense. An average player will recognize that opportunity as an attack window and stuff in his two or three grabs. A good player will try to command the new top offense during that attack window, knowing that there will be a larger variety of targets available. And an expert will try to mess around with top offense’s attack cycle by pushing threat offense inbetween those first two attacks in hopes of forcing top offense to make a smaller grab. Even if you don’t plan on attacking immediately, overtraining offense as threat offense may tip the scales just enough to force the issue.

5. Some of the usual tactics
Just to list some commonly used tactics: spec pushes, tavern pushes, hourchanging, shadowing (attacking around top offense), stockpiling & overtraining offense, wall/forge pushes (including coordinated realm wall/forge push), and even in a couple of cases, faith switching. There are a lot more that I’ve seen used that I forget off the top of my head.

6. Knowing your enemies
Very often, players can’t keep their locations secret. It only takes one player in a 6-pack to leak the entire realm’s info, and that knowledge is vital in weighing what tactics need to be employed. For instance, if one of the top land players is a known conservative bottomfeeder, the player will oftentimes be ignored because he will not pack threat offense anytime soon (see point #4). If the names of an entire 6-pack are uncovered and let’s say, they have relatively predictable login periods because their local timezones are known, then it will be much easier to know when that realm is unlikely to have war available (see point #2). Or if a player is known to suicide and farm himself out late in rounds, an opposing realm will get several offenses ready on standby to draw the player out and capitalize on the easy land gains, even at the expense of one player. Knowing your enemies and their playing styles is crucial to playing at the highest levels of this game. That’s why protecting your location is so important.

-Heavenking of Heaven posted at 2009-01-22 10:09:25 CET
7. Playing your enemies
If you know who is behind a particular opponent kingdom, then you will be able to devise tactics to exploit both that player’s strengths and weaknesses. If a player near the top is a known bottomfeeder, a near-top offense can force the issue by aligning his attack cycle with the bottomfeeder’s. A false-alarm hostile threat can further get the point across. If a player is paranoid and checks many top offensive threats constantly, stockpile gold and/or overtrain offense to force him to spend his own economy and overtrain defense. If you are trying to protect easy farms from a future top offense who hasn’t trained up yet, you can press the issue by getting to them first, or fail info ops on purpose to force them to train necessary defense. Out-of-realm coordination is prohibited, but mind games aren’t.

8. Bigger fish to fry
Many players settle for acres from the cheap non-threats when they should be dealing directly with their opponents. If you ever happen to hold the torch (or have close to top offense where you’re also a major threat), use it effectively. Experts spend time plotting their opponents’ demise, and careful planning and trap-setting is required to take down opponents. Never has there been a round where the top land players haven’t taken a swing at each other. If you’re packing heat and not using it on your threats, you will find yourself in trouble sooner or later when they come after you.

9. 67% size
Oftentimes, top offense is also top land, and you may find yourself hovering around his 67% size. It is a tremenduous advantage to be slightly below that 67% than slightly above (although you’d rather find yourself much larger, of course) that a player under that 67% often carries another torch. That torch can be used in a straightforward fashion to make a chain of cleanup grabs, or it can be used to hinder the growth of opponents in top offense’s 67% while he is in a rebuilding phase. Also, another advantage of being the smaller land player is that in a 1-for-1 confrontation, the smaller player wins and therefore holds the torch if top land can’t defend him.

10. The numbers game
This is a team game, and anytime you have multiple players in a realm that can pack heat, it is a good thing. While top offense is in rebuilding mode between attack cycles, a realmmate that can hold the torch temporarily will starve opponents from gaining crucial acres and economy. Also, the threat of 2-for-1, 3-for-2, and other potential exchanges force the short-handed realm to put forth more defense. It is oftentimes not trivial who exactly is holding the torch. For example, top land and offense might be held back by a combination of two opponents in one realm and might have insufficient defense and defense-in-training to attack. A player that can deduce this would see that the torch is actually being held by his two opponents, and may possibly be able to make an effective grab with the lesser offense to deal with.

Anyways, these were just some tips from a retired player. Good luck and hopefully you guys actually use the advice.

I continue with you to the nostalgic second part of the story, which sets the stage for one of the main conflicts of the story; the conflict between the established order and the forces of change.

Song 2: Les Sans Papiers – Illegal Migrants

“Les Sans Papiers” literally means Those Without Papers. The migrants outside the walls of the Cathedral are screaming for asylum, calling Our Lady for refuge. Again the interplay between the story and today’s issues when the refugees describe themselves not only as Sans Papiers, but also Sans Domiciles (Homeless). They cry out of Our Lady to take them inside the walls, and the many-layered significance of the title surface again, Our Lady the Virgin in the hearts, Our Lady the Cathedral carrying the name, or, Our Lady of Paris, standing for Paris itself.. civilization and security.. But why would the Lady not take them in? you need not ask, for the refugees themselves give a horrible promise in exchange of hospitality.. they will be more and more and more.. millions of refugees will come and fill in the city, with their different looks, ragged clothes, and poverty..

Nostalgic I tell you this chapter is.. and doubly so to me, for I spent my childhood in France, and I am nostalgic for the beauty of the civilized world.. fake as that beauty and civilization may have been, for they were built in large part on egoism and neglect of the issues of poverty, war, and other ills that should not have went unconsidered.. yet I am nostalgic for it still is threatened beauty, and the fall of any image of civilization remind me of the fall of my own..

And I am also nostalgic for how we from the South came to be seen in the North.. as the poor and uneducated.. as the destroyers of civilization, though we invented the concept.. but this will drag me into discussing our Southern problems of corruption and ignorance and laziness and and and.. but let’s focus on that beautiful tale for now.. May Our Lady have mercy on us and take us to her refuge..

I am tired now and need to rest.. I will continue the story with you later..

Language is but one barrier among us who want to reach out to each other.. and while the instant communication can use translation, another more important thing can hardly be translated, the memories we have from childhood songs, the major works of art and literature that we grow up with, and that grow up in our memories as we grow up.. As we go, I will be sharing with you some of the beautiful works I know of, mainly from French, Egyptian (Modern and Ancient), and Arabic (Modern and Classical) as I remember them..

I would like first to introduce you to one of the most fascinating musicals.. it is a high quality video from a French production, subtitled in English to please your mind, just as I hope the music will please your ears and heart..

Song 1: Le Temps Des Cathedrales – The Time of Cathedrals

I appreciate the delicate usage of the story to touch on the irony of contemporary issues, such as (western) humanity’s grasping for the stars while the hungry fill the earth, and the resulting end of traditional Europe (especially France) by migration from the south. But enough of my art critique, I wish to leave a final note on translation.

The real title of the story was lost in translation to English, for “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”, in my humble opinion, misses the whole meaning of the story, for the story is not about the hunchback Quasimodo, but more about Notre-Dame de Paris, or “Our Lady of Paris”, which is the name of the famous Cathedral in Paris, named Notre Dame, or Our Lady, in honor of the Virgin Lady Mary who was accused by the impure to be impure, though she carried salvation to the world.

Hopefully this should be fixed ASAP, so kindly reload in a minute and things should be back to normal.

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I enjoyed an unexpected laugh a minute ago. I was posting my previous post when the above error message showed up in a huge and very beautiful font. I couldn’t help but laugh instead of being frustrated. I just wanted to share this in gratitude to the WonPerful team that brought us the best blogging platform for the passion they put in every detail of their many efforts supporting our community, and even when the occasional glitch does happen, you still get a laugh out of it. Appreciate it *smile*.

And Matt, even if it really was your fault (just kidding), I tell you, and everybody in WordPress.Com, Goshblessyou!

“A book filled with pictures and fairytales. It’s very seductive to the weak-minded.” At least that’s what its formal description says. I found it in an expedition in a weird land ravaged by war called Elveron, where, among other peculiarities, weapons are clearly labeled as such. I didn’t add it to the inventory. It must have been Hotep. I was going to throw it away, it being clearly labeled as just a “common weapon” capable only of relatively little damage, and thus seemingly of no use in our expedition that day. Rare weapons with high damage potential are more important to carry in our limited inventory.

He noticed as I attempted to throw it away to free the inventory, but he held my arm before I threw, signalling that whe wanted to keep it for a while, unashamed of being such a respectable elderly man wanting to keep a book that was, as its own label clearly indicates, “filled with pictures seductive specifically to the weak-minded”. But a man like Hotep earned himself the prerogative (is that the word?) of enjoying some eccentricities. The little price I pay for having a wise man on my side in turbulent times, I suppose.

A little bit later, he spoke to me: “It’s a weapon. I always knew it but never put it in that term before. A weapon. Against the weak-minded!” He He told me, sounding shocked and bewildered, as if experiencing a rare revelation. From my part, I just thought it wasn’t that big of a deal, just an ineffective tool, and I wanted to get rid of it to make more room for more useful things.

“You don’t seem to understand its genius importance,” he said. “No, I don’t,” I replied, inviting him to talk it out, half-hoping that if he shared his amazement he’d be more willing to let me sell it or throw it away instead of carrying it around. I was convinced it was useless to me in this expedition. It was common, after all, and chances are we would find another one like it anyway. He showed me the label:

~

Name: Book of Joy
Type: Weapon
Low Damage: 1
High Damage: 4
Rarity: Common
Level Requirement: 2
Value: 2000 Gold
Description: A book filled with pictures and fairytales. It’s very seductive to the weak-minded.

~

“You see, Xeper, in Elveron, one has to attack you with a weapon to harm you, so the Book of Joy will only hurt you 1 to 4 damage points in every attack. But in Mundane Life, the Books of Joy are around us everywhere, and we hurt our own selves by using them. But the problem is we use them excessively, and are joyful, but hurtful joy. And because we see no one attacking us, we do them again and again and again. And the common ineffective weapon becomes lethal, since you apply it many many many many times, slowly destroying yourself, without even knowing it.”

I did not see the such of this book in our life away from Elveron. I am not sure if he sensed it and was replying or was simply continuing his original train of thoughts when he siad.. “television wasting your time with self-advertising, celebrity magazines and sports news and political discussions away from policy makers, every talk with nothing new nor Real nor even real that you can use except in showing off in front of others.. Books of Joy.. hurting you 1 to 4 damage points (in the head!) EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU USE IT!!!

“All excessive entertainment, all empty entertainment, all useless knowledge, all headache-inducing entertainment, all hyper-fast advertising, all fragmented sequences in action movies and music videos, all subliminal messages.. I have a headache just thinking about them..

“Books of Joy..”

He sighed.

“Sweet weapons,” I replied. I was starting to see it. Something was being squeezed inside me. It didn’t feel right, anyway. Denial?

Denial? Is that your taste?

I felt bad.. half of my precious collections on my external hard disk was useless, giving me joy just keeping it.. IF ever I needed it.. or bumped into it by mistake.. burden.. and I never use them to say the truth.. Wisdom doesn’t feel good, it seems.. not always, at least.. Are you an acquired taste, after all, dear Wisdom?.. Or did I just experience a Wisdom overdose?..

~~~

I was still fighting my dizziness and nausea.. hearing Hotep mocking me.. his voice unclear as if coming from afar.. “my precious collection?? Why not say my preeeeeciouuuuuus!”.. then he tossed it away.. got rid of it.. the time waster, useless entertainment that leaves you needing more rest than when you first used it.. the Book of Joy.. just one of many..

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

~

Perfect love is rare indeed – for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.

~

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.

~

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Author and motivational speaker, Felice Leonardo “Leo” Buscaglia, Ph. D. ( 31 March 1924 – 11 June 1998 ) worked actively to overcome social and mental barriers that inhibited the expression of love between people, from family to acquaintances to people with disabilities, the institutionalized, and elderly, to complete strangers. The profundity of his subject struck a responsive chord regarding an area many regarded as deficient in their lives, and by 1998 his books had reached eighteen million copies in print in seventeen languages. God bless his soul.